310 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Costa rica's neglected stone spheres The calico debate, plus a little editorializing Astronomy Small icy comets and cosmic gaia Carbon in a new comet Meteorites also transport organic payloads Supernova confusion and mysteries "COMPACT STRUCTURES": WHAT NEXT? Biology Nose news Checklist of apparently unknown animals New vertebrate depth record Aggressive mimicry Parasites control snail behavior Geology Do large meteors/comets come in cycles? Complexities of the inner earth Geophysics Concentrated source of lightning in cloud More carolina waterguns More moodus sounds Inside a texas tornado Ship enveloped by false radar echo Psychology Dowsing skeptics converted Do dreams reflect a biological state? ...
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... structures. P. Uwins and her colleagues at the University of Queensland believe these structures (" nanobes") are alive. They appear to grow and have cell walls. But skeptics assert that some lifeless chemical structures also grow. Others suspect contamination of the sample as it was raised to the surface and handled. Published photos of the nanobes look very much like the structures in the Martian meteorite ALH84001, which are claimed to be fossilized extraterrestrial bacteria. (SF#116) (Dayton, Leigh; "Tiny Wonders," New Scientist, p. 13, March 27, 1999.) Comment. R.L . Folk claims that so-called "nannobacteria" (100-400 nanometers) are ubiquitous on the earth. Few biologists believe that life forms can be this small, and they opt for lifeless mineral structures instead. (SF#110) Do nanobes = nannobacteria? We don't know, but wish everyone would spell this prefix the same way! From Science Frontiers #123, MAY-JUN 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... telescope, should increase the number of quasars counted in the sky near galactic clusters. Such larger quasar counts are indeed observed, but these increases are much larger than expected. The implication is that there is much more dark matter in the universe than previously thought. (Cowen, Ron; "Quasar Count Poses Dark-Matter Puzzle," Science News, 143:397, 1993.) Finally, dark matter is forcing scientists to reexamine the Equivalence Principle, which asserts that gravitational mass (as in Newton's Law of Gravitation) is identical to inertial mass (as in Newton's Force = Mass X Acceleration). In terrestrial experiments, the two kinds of mass are equal, but on a cosmological scale, they may not be. There could be an extra, small (10%), longrange, non-gravitational force exerted between massive objects. (Frieman, Joshua A., and Gradwohl, Ben-Ami; "Dark Matter and the Equivalence Principle," Science, 260:1441, 1993.) Reference. "Dark matter" or "missing mass" is cataloged in AWB5 in our book: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Details of this book may be seen here . From Science Frontiers #89, SEP-OCT 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... , Orsotriena medus, masters this situation by changing wing patterns with the season. In the dry season, it is dark brown and inconspicuous; in the wet season, it switches to black wings with ostentatious eyespots and white bands. (Anonymous; "Cryptic Butterflies," New Scientist, 20, September 13, 1984.) The Asiatic freshwater clam has spread rapidly across North America since its accidental introduction about 50 years ago. In addition to its natural dispersal via its more mobile larvae, the young adult clams have a surprising method of hitchhiking rides on the water currents. Through their siphons they deploy long mucous threads. Water currents pull on these threads just as air currents catch the silken threads of migrating spiders. Given a water current of 10-20 cm/sec, the small clams manufacture and deploy their threads, and off they go downstream. (Prezant, Robert S., and Chalermwat, Kashane; "Flotation of the Bivalve Corbicula Fluminea as a Means of Dispersal," Science, 225:1491, 1984.) Australia boasts many peculiar animals and plants. One of these is an orchid that grows underground. Obviously this orchid cannot employ photosynthesis. Rather, it grows in conjunction with a fungus that obtains nutrients from surrounding roots. The fungal threads penetrate both roots and orchids. The orchids make ends meet by systematically killing and digesting the nutrient-laden fungal threads. When the orchid flowers, it pushes toward the surface just enough to open some tiny cracks in the earth. In these cracks, still below the surface, appear the tiny burgundy ...
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... the brain and nervous system of fish using active electric sensing is evident in the South American fish Eigenmannia . This fish (different from the knife fish above) emits electric pulses at frequencies betwen 250 and 600 per second for electrolocation and communication. M. Kawasaki, at the University of Virginia, has investigated what happens when two of these fish operating on similar frequencies meet. Ordinarily, the fish would jam each other's sensory apparatus and "blind" each other. To circumvent this Eigenmannia has evolved a "jamming avoidance response," in which they both shift their pulse frequencies away from each other. To accomplish this, the fish must be able to detect time disparities between the two sets of signals less than 1 microsecond long. Their individual electroreceptors are not capable of handling such small time differences. Kawasaki has concluded that the jamming avoidance response can come only from highly sophisticated signal processing in the fish's central nervous system. (Kawasaki, Masashi; "Temporal Hyperacuity in the Gymnotiform Electric Fish Eigenmannia ," American Zoologist , 33:86, 1993.) Comment. Echo-locating bats and dolphins also possess sophisticated data processing apparatus for analyzing the echos they receive back from their prey and surroundings. It will be interesting to discover if evolution has come up with similar organic "components" for handling acoustic and electric signals. Further, we know that some insects have developed ears and sound generators to detect and jam hunting bats. Have the prey of electric fish evolved corresponding countermeasures? If not, why not? From Science Frontiers #89, SEP- ...
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... spike' of ice, ending in an arrowhead. The ice was solid and came out of the side of the frozen water at an angle of about 45 . It was about 9 inches long and solid throughout." (Turner, Judy; "Spooky Spike," New Scientist, p. 54, November 2, 1991.) Two weeks later, the same journal published two radically different explanations of the ice spike. G. Lewis called the spike an "ice fountain" and stated that it is due to the well-known expansion of water as it freezes. R. Blumen-feld, on the other hand, attributed the growth of the spike to the fact that water molecules on the surface and in surrounding air are electrical dipoles. In his view, a small defect in the ice's surface attracts polarized water molecules in the air, creating an outwardly growing structure. (Lewis, Geoff, and Blumenfeld, Raphael; "Sprouting Spikes," New Scientist, p. 58, November 16, 1991.) Comment. Seldom does one find such engaging oddities discussed in American scientific publications. American scien tists are too stuffy it seems. From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... galaxies have up to twenty partial shells divided between the two ends of the ellipsoid. What is most intriguing is the fact that the shells are systematically arranged. The closest partial shell will be at one end of the ellipsoid, while the second closest will be at the opposite end. The third closest will be just beyond the first closest, and so on. The shells "interleave" or alternate ends as their distances increase. If the alternating partial shells of stars belong to the elliptical galaxy (they seem to, agewise), did the elliptical galaxy shoot the first wave out one end and then expel the second wave out the opposite end? Or did the alternating shells form in situ from the primordial gas and dust that made the galaxy? An-other possibility is that a small galaxy collided with the monster elliptical galaxy, and its constituent stars were scattered in regular waves. There is some physical and mathematical support for such a regular scattering of a burst of stars by a dense elliptical mass of target stars. (Edmunds, M.G .; "Galaxies in Collision," Nature, 311:10, 1984.) Comment. This star-scattering process reminds one of how electrons are scattered by crystals and other subatomic scattering situations. We may have here another place where quantum mechanics applies in macroscopic nature. Reference. Galactic "shells" are cataloged in AWO5 in our Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. To order, visit: here . Ellipsoidal shells of stars along the axis of an elliptical galaxy. From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC ...
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... pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Telepathic Rabbits Well, why not? Our experimental study has tried to bring out the existence of a correlation, at a distance, between the physiological reactions of two rabbits from the same litter who had always lived together. We chose photoelectric plethysmography as being the least traumatic method for the rabbits and the one most capable of giving evidence of the physiological reaction specific to stress. Through this method, we studied the coincidences between the outsets of the two rabbits' emotional reactions. Added to the rabbits' isolation through distance, some experiments involved the setting up of sensorial and electromagnetic isolation boxes. We studied the coincidences occurring between the spontaneous emotional reactions of the rabbits as well as the coincidences occurring between the reactions provoked by small stimulae, such as the sound of a bell in one of the boxes. Two series of experiments out of four gave significant results, leading one to think that a conscious or unconscious telepathic link does exist between two rabbits that have close links with each other. (Thouvenin, Bernard; "A Study of Telepathic Phenomena among Rabbits," Revue Francaise de Psychotronique , 1:15, July-September 1988. As abstracted in Exceptional Human Experience , 9:47, June 1991.) From Science Frontiers #79, JAN-FEB 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... solar eclipse. About five minutes before totality, my wife and I noticed many curved shadows about 3 centimetres long dancing on a white paper lying on the ground, formed by a swarm of gnats. The shadows were exactly the same shape as the remaining bright portion of the Sun, by then only a thin arc of light. Why?" This phenomenon is not anomalous but it is entertaining. It is the reverse of the pin-hole-camera effect often seen during total eclipses. People standing in the shadow of a tree will see many bright arcs on the ground -- images of the sun being eclipsed. The interstices between the tree's leaves act as pinholes. The phenomenon happens in reverse when pin-holes are replaced by "pins"; that is, small opaque obstructions, such as gnats. (Scott, Andrew, and Diebold, Mike; "Shadow Dance," New Scientist, p. 93, October 30, 1999.) From Science Frontiers #127, JAN-FEB 2000 . 1997 William R. Corliss ...
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... extraterrestrial projectiles. Why aren't earthbound observers aware of all these atmospheric explosions? Because most are infrared events; few emit enough visible light to attract the attention of ground-based observers. However, two of these "secret" meteoric events might explain some Fortean phenomena recorded over the last two centuries. April 15, 1978. Over Indonesia. A military satellite watched a colossal daylight fireball that, for one second only, would have rivaled the sun to anyone watching from the ground below and alert to such phenomena. The TNT yield was estimated at 5 kilotons. August 3, 1963. Between South Africa and Antarctica. A huge airburst equivalent to a 500 kilotons was picked up by a worldwide network of acoustic detectors. The cosmic interloper this time was believed to have been a small asteroid about 20 meters in diameter. (Beatty, J. Kelly; "' Secret' Impacts Revealed," Sky and Telescope, 87:26, February 1994. Cr. P. Huyghe. Also: Broad, William J.; "Meteoroids Hit Atmosphere in Atomic-Size Blasts," New York Times, January 25, 1994. Cr. J. Covey) Comment. The Indonesian event mentioned above may be associated with the many recorded instances of transient brightenings of the entire sky (GLA14 in Lightning, Auroras, Noctural Lights ). The 1963 acoustic event might be related to the many mysterious booms or detonations heard down the decades, long before jet planes offended our ear-drums (GSD1 in Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds ). Both of the books ...
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... projects is rarely mentioned in the literature and is poorly investigated in the field. Probably no more than 150 miles in length, it cannot compare with China's Great Wall. Still, it is built at altitudes of 8,000-12,000 feet in extremely rugged terrain. It runs along high ridges and is studded with stone forts at strategic intervals. Even though the Inca Wall is only a few feet high, it would certainly slow down a force charging up precipitous terrain at two miles altitude. The true extent and condition of the Inca Wall is not accurately known. Only a few easily accessible sections have been checked out. The theory is that the Incas built it to discourage invasions by lowland Indians. Like all Great Walls, it seems to have met with only small success. (Paddock, Franklin K.; "The Great Wall of the Inca," Archaeology, 37:62, July/ August 1984.) Comment. The Great Wall of the Incas is located in Bolivia. There is another Great Wall in Peru that seems to have been built by the Chimu people, perhaps to defend themselves against the Incas! The Chimu Great Wall averages 7 feet in height and reaches 20-30 feet where it crosses gullies. Also incompletely explored, it may run some 60 miles. For a more complete description, see our Handbook Ancient Man. Information on this book is located here . From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Anomalous Antiquity of Some Landforms All over the planet, but particularly in Australia, there exist great expanses of land surface that fossils and radiometric dating tell us are tens of millions of years old. This doesn't seem very serious until we learn that, given today's erosion rates, these landforms should be deeply eroded or, more likely, completely erased by the forces of nature. This paradox has long been used by Creationists to challenge geological dating methods. Mainstream geologists do recognize the paradox but have had scant success in resolving it. For example, geologist C.H . Crickmay wrote: Again, one finds all over the world, even high above and far distant from existing waterways, smooth-surfaced and level ground -- including everything from small terraces to broad, flat plains -- much of it still bearing intact a carpet of stream alluvium. Such lands were carved and carpeted, evidently, by running water, even though they are now in places where no stream could possibly run... What is remarkable about them is the perfection with which they have out-lasted the attack of "denudation" for all the time that has passed since they lay at stream level. (The Work of the River, New York, 1974) This paradox of uneroded ancient landforms remains as obdurate as the landforms themselves. (Oard, Michael J.; "Antiquity of Landforms: Objective Evidence That Dating Methods Are Wrong," CEN Technical Journal, 14:35, 2000. This Australian Creationist journal asks many such penetrating ...
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... 99 , #102 , and #111 ). It now seems that the human ear-brain combination can also discern the shapes and dimensions of thin, vibrating plates by the sound they make. In one type of experiment, conducted by A.J . Kunkler-Peck (Brandeis University) and M.T . Turvey (University of Connecticut), subjects gave surprisingly accurate estimates of the heights and widths of three different vibrating plates. The plates were concealed behind a screen, but the subjects could remotely control a striker. In further experiments, other subjects could distinguish between the sounds of circular, rectangular, and triangular plates. (Anonymous; "Listen to the Shapes," Science News, 157:171, 2000.) Comment. We all know from experience that small, thin plates produce higher pitched sounds that larger plates. How-ever, the ability to assign accurate dimensions without some training is surprising. The same can be said for the identification of shapes. Who, for ex-ample, has been exposed to vibrating, triangular-shaped plates in ordinary life? Could we be dealing here with another innate talent that, like perfect pitch, seems to have no adaptive value in the evolution of humans? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Marine Snow The marine analog of the high-altitude U2 used to collect interplanetary dust is the scuba diver armed with small jars and syringes. In these, marine biologists, such as A. Alldredge, collect the tiny bits of debris drifting downwards from the ocean's upper layers. This is the "marine snow." Its constituents are mainly: ". .. the tiny leftovers of animals, plants, and non-living matter in the ocean's sun-suffused upper zones. Among these particles are chains of single-celled plants called diatoms, shreds of zooplankters' mucous food traps, soot, fecal pellets, dust motes, radioactive fallout, sand grains, pollen, and pollutants. Microorganisms also live inside and on top of these odd-shaped flakes." Marine snow is everywhere in the ocean. Sometimes, it reaches blizzard proportions, and divers cannot see beyond a few feet. Measured in millimeters, the marine snowflakes are much larger than the average interplanetary dust particles (but of course interplanetary dust itself is also a constituent of marine snow). The bigger marine snowflakes -- over 0.5 mm -- are a major food source for deep-sea denizens waiting below for this manna from the watery heaven. The reason for mentioning marine snow in Science Frontiers is that biologists like Alldredge are really pio-neering new territory, where new anomalies must surely dwell. "' ...
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... , these conditions were sufficient to produce a progression of visual hallucinations from simple geometric images to complex memory images coupled with dissociation. The other 23 victims, subjected to similar conditions but without isolation and life-threatening stress, did not experience hallucinations. The hostage hallucinations are compared to those resulting from sensory deprivation, near fatal accidents, and other states of isolation and stress. A common mechanism of action based on entopic phenomena and CNS (central nervous system) excitation and arousal is suggested." In a typical case, an 18-year-old female college student was kidnapped and held for ransom. She was bound, blindfolded, and denied food, water, and toilet facilities. She was periodically threatened with death. She saw dull flashes of light in front of her eyes and small animals and insects on the periphery of her visual field. Becoming hypervigilant, she heard strange sounds and whispers. Hearing loud noises, she thought her captors were coming to kill her. It was then her whole life ran off like a slide show before her eyes. The noises were the police coming to rescue her. (Siegel, Ronald K.; "Hostage Hallucinations," Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 172:264, 1984.) Comment. Some of the hostages experienced the tunnel hallucination so common in near-death visions. These seemingly 'built-in' or hard-wired images may be related to UFO and sea-serpent phenomena. From Science Frontiers #34, JUL-AUG 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Earthquake Lights November 1988-January 1989. Saguenay region of Quebec. During this period, a total of 67 quakes were recorded. The foreshock (November 23) registered 4.8 ; the main shock (November 25), 6.5 mmlg. Many after-shocks followed. During this spate of tremors, 38 unusual luminosities were initially reported from the region, 8 of them before the foreshock, being in effect earthquake precursors. Afterwards, residents were queried for details and additional observations. A total of 46 reports sufficiently detailed for analysis were obtained. These luminous phenomena were classified according to a scheme proposed by F. Montandon in 1948. Montandon's five categories are: Seismic lightning (no thunder); Luminous bands in atmosphere; Globular incandescent masses; Fire tongues, small mobile flames near the ground, like will-o '- the wisps; and Flames emerging from the ground. The globular incandescent masses were by far the most common type of earthquake light during this Canadian "flap." Of these, F. St-Laurent writes: There were twenty-two reports coming from different places. Often they were seen far from the epicenter or when the seismic activity was low or quiet. Some were stationary (in one case, the yellow and orange mass presented a horizontal elongated form), others were seen emerging from the ground, some were very fast-moving near the ground, one was seen attached to a luminous band -- all as described by Montandon. (St-Laurent, F.; "The Saguenay, Quebec ...
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... his case, as has sometimes been put forward as an explanation for the long-term decline effect, for it was Stepanek's great strength that he was constitutionally incapable of ever being bored! Nor can we take seriously Martin Gardner's attempt to explain how he might have relied throughout on trickery. If indeed he was a trickster, he should have steadily improved as he became more practiced. Whatever the explanation of these long-term declines, it must surely be something deep and pervasive." Further, it seems that while "strong" parapsychological phenomena declined rapidly, the "weak" parapsychological phenomena persisted. Here, Beloff cites as "weak" phenomena those measured by R. Jahn's Princeton group, in which thousands of PK (psychokinesis) attempts consistently show small, but statistically significant positive effects over long periods of time. Beloff sees two possible explanations for the decline effect: Each new strong parapsychological phenomenon consists only of a succession of deceptions and blunders, which under severe scrutiny soon fades away -- as with high ESP scorers using the venerable Zener cards. Beloff rejects this skeptical interpretation because of "its failure to offer any specific, plausible, normal counterexplanation to the various episodes that go to make up our history;" i.e ., the long history of parapsychological research. [? ?] Instead, Beloff suggests that a paranormal phenomenon actually represents a "violation of the natural order." Nature, he says, reacts to these rents in the fabric of the cosmos by healing them just as our bodies heal wounds. ...
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... the sand. Intrigued by the evidence of unexpected catastrophism in the Gobi, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History first took a look at Nebraska's strange Sand Hills. These Sand Hills stretch for thousands of square miles, reach heights of 400 feet, and are believed to be of aeolian origin during the Pleistocene. (See ETM7 in Carolina Bays ) Being a modern analog of the ancient Gobi, the Nebraska Sand Hills might provide some insights as to what happened long ago in the Gobi. An important clue occurs during the summer, when heavy thunderstorms sometimes trigger avalanches of wet sand called "debris flows". These sandslides may be 900 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 4 feet deep. Although they have occasionally partly buried ranch buildings, they are too slow and small to endangerlivestock and wild animals. But what if they were much larger and faster? Back on the Gobi, geologists remarked that the rich fossil deposits were found in structureless sandstone; i.e ., there was none of the cross-bedding seen in sandstones elsewhere in the region. Furthermore, fossils were extremely rare in the cross-bedded sandstones, which were built up over long periods of time. It looked as if the structureless, fossiliferous sandstones were sandslides differing from those in Nebraska in their much greater magnitude. But why were the Gobi sandslides so much larger and, apparently, faster? The next clue came from the recent devastating mudflows in California and Central America caused by heavy rains. These debris flows were made deadly when the infiltrating rainwater was blocked by bedrock. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Falling Masses Swerve South In 1901, Florian Cajori had a paper published in Science with the title: "The Unexplained Southerly Deviation of Falling Bodies." Cajori reviewed the pertinent measurements that had been made prior to 1901 on falling bodies, emphasizing that the anomaly described in the title of his paper truly existed. In a recent letter to the American Journal of Physics, A.P . French brings the record up to date. (It should be pointed out here that a slight easterly deflection of falling bodies is predicted, but that a southerly deflection should be negligible, although not zero.) In the post-1901 experiments, small southerly and northerly deflections have been detected. These should not occur for an ideal rotating sphere -- which the earth isn't . French ends his brief review by stating that the earth's gravitational field is now known well enough so that further experiments with falling objects might once-and-for-all determine the nature (and reality) of the delightful anomaly. (French, A.P ., "The Deflection of Falling Objects," American Journal of Physics, 52:199, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... ponderously within the confining river ice. A curious phenomenon is this, but one that seems to yield to simple explanation rather easily. Somewhat more puzzling is a 16-foot ice ring that formed overnight in the more placid waters of a farm pond near Delta, Ontario, in December 2000. The ice was too thin to walk upon, so it had to be a natural phenomenon. However, there was no whirlpool to provide the lathe-like action needed to create the neat disc. Nor was the disc said to be rotating when discovered. The whole event happened very quickly, too. (Bronskill, Jim; "Strange Ice Rings Baffle Researchers," Toronto National Post, March 8, 2001. Cr. G. Duplantier via L. Farish.) Comment. Even small farm ponds have some circulation of water, particularly if fed by a stream. Rather than trying to associate ice rings with crop circles, as some do, it would be better to find out what's happening below the ice! From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Precambrian nuclear reactors!On December 2, 1942, at Stagg Field, in Chicago, the first human-built nuclear reactor went critical. This feat has long been hailed as a triumph of the human intellect. Nature, though, had already beat E. Fermi and his colleagues by 2 billion years. For at Oklo and Bangombe, in the African Republic of Gabon, one finds the "ashes" where some 17 natural nuclear reactors cooked away for hundreds of thousands of years. Operating at temperatures as high as 360 C, they generated about 17,800 megawatt-years of energy. The Gabon reactors were discovered in 1972 when the French found that uranium ore from Gabon contained anomalously low concentrations of the fissionable isotope 235U as well as fission products. A little excavation work uncovered small pockets, a few meters in length and less than a meter in width, where natural fission had occurred in the Precambrian period. A geological reconstruction of what probably happened involves: (1 ) uranium-bearing solutions migrating through the fractured rocks of the region; and (2 ) the precipitation of the uranium as pitchblende and uranite when the solutions came in contact with kerogen. A critical mass was formed and a chain reaction started. Such a scenario is unlikely today because the concentration of fissionable 235U in natural uranium has declined by a factor of about five in the last 2 billion years. The half life of 235U is only about 700 million years. (Nagy, Bartholomew; "Precambrian Nuclear Reactors at Oklo," Geotimes , 38: 18, May 1993. Also: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Those Strange Antarctic Fishes A representative Notothenioid fish from Antarctic waters. (From: Eastman, Joseph T,; Antarctic Fish Biology , San Diego, 1993.) In the frigid waters ringing the continent of Antarctica live approximately 275 species of fishes, 95 of which are assigned to the suborder Notothenioidei. This particular group of fishes is renowned for its unusual adaptations, as outlined below by D. Policansky: "Some of them have glycoprotein antifreezes in their blood, some have no hemoglobin, some have so small a temperature tolerance that they die at temperatures above 4 C, some are neutrally buoyant despite lacking swim bladders, and some live as deep as 2950 meters. The suborder has no known fossils, largely because no bony feature -- indeed, no single character of any sort -- can be used to define it. How did these animals arrive there, what are their ancestors, how do they make a living in such an environment, and how can they support commercial harvests?" (Policansky, David; "Southernmost Fauna," Science, 264:1002, 1994.) Comment. Those species lacking hemoglobin in their blood are doubly perplexing: (1 ) Zoologists still do not know how sufficient oxygen is transported in these fishes, for what substitutes for normal blood seems inadequate; (2 ) How could they have evolved from hemoglobin-carrying fishes? and (3 ) Why switch from hemoglobin at ...
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... comma-shaped' electrical 'worms' wriggling about -- sizzling, hissing and flickering. It flattened by 1/4 into the egg shape on each bounce. On reaching the far western end of our verandah it accelerated rapidly and rose at a steep angle of about 45 degrees clearing the apricot tree, wires, and the house next door. At this stage my mother rushed in the back door of the house where we huddled for about 30 seconds before hearing a resounding crash some 250 yards away off to the east. It had hit Green's house at the far eastern end of Campbell Road. It apparently then bounced all the way to the Salvation Army home and demolished the whole house somewhere near Dawson and Florence Streets at Fullarton." The ball rotated slowly and emitted small sparks. (Illert, Theodore Charles; "The Parkside Lightning Ball," personal communication from C. Illert. To be published in "Speak No Evil: A Case Study of Lives and Times of German Settlers in South Australia," by C. Illert) Ball lightning with a wormy or rope-like surface structure. The example sketched above appeared in an English garden, but it is basically the same as the Parkside ball lightning. (See the Catalog of Anomalies) From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... that piles of porous rocks could, in desert climes, capture and condense surprisingly large quantities of water. Take, for example, the 13 pyramids of loose limestone rocks that the Greeks constructed some 2500 years ago at Theodosia in the Crimea: "The pyramids averaged nearly 40 feet high and were placed on hills around the city. As wind moved air through the heaps of stone, the day's cycle of rising and falling temperatures caused moisture to condense, run down, and feed a network of clay pipes. "One archaeologist calculated a water flow of 14,400 gallons per pyramid per day, based on the size of the clay pipes leading from each device." Weren't the ancient Greeks clever? But perhaps they had observed how some mice in the Sahara pile small heaps of rocks in front of their burrows and lick the condensed moisture off in the morning. Possibly we should have classified this item under "Biology"! (Dietrich, Bill; "Water from Stones: Greeks Found a Way," Arizona Republic , p. AA1, December 22, 1991. Cr. T.W . Colvin.) From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Koch and F. Crick may have an answer. They speculate that: It may be because consciousness allows the system to plan future actions, opening up a potentially infinite behavioural repertoire and making explicit memory possible. (Koch, Christof, and Crick, Francis; "The Zombie Within," Nature, 411:893, 2001.) Questions. Could our zombie agents, primitive though they may be, be the source of those flashes of genius that appear out of nowhere, or perhaps that "dreamwork" from which solutions to problems appear fully formed upon wakening? The quotation from the Nature article presumes that consciousness does have survival value, else it would not have evolved. What sort of highly innovative genetic changes would lead to such a remarkable brain function? Did consciousness evolve in small Darwinian steps or in some grand, lucky mutation? Did any nonhuman animals progress beyond their inheritance of zombie agents? From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... . According to his hypothesis, water has had little or no importance in shaping the Martian landscape. Instead, his 'White Mars' model contends that the gurgling, frothing and sometimes explosive venting of carbon dioxide gas from beneath the surface created the features. Outrageous as Hoffman's hypothesis is, it is supported by several significant observations that seem to deny a watery Mars. The Mars Global Surveyor has not detected any carbonate minerals that should have been created when water interacted chemically with the planet's CO2 atmosphere. Surface photos fail to show the fine networks of tributaries that should have fed the larger drainage features if water were the agent of erosion. There is no evidence of large lakes or reservoirs at the heads of the so-called "flood channels." Except for a small amount of water ice at the poles, Mars is dominated by solid and gaseous CO2. One would not expect that carbon dioxide could mimic erosion features like those carved out by terrestrial water. However, Hoffman points to the devastating erosion caused by terrestrial volcanic explosions with their blasts of gases and ash, their mudflows, and their avalanches that gouge the terrain for many miles. (O 'Hanlon, Larry; "The Outrageous Hypothesis," Nature, 413:664, 2001.) Comment. See under GEOPHYSICS for a spectacular "dry" erosion event on Earth. From Science Frontiers #139, Jan-Feb 2002 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and ...
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... /white lenticular clouds which leaned to the right as shown in the sketch. Although they all kept their lenticular shape, the final burst did break up, giving the appearance of being in a gaseous state. Each burst commenced as a pinprick of bright, white light expanding rapidly to at least 2 times the diameter of the sun (No. 1)...." (Anonymous; "Unidentified Phenomena," Marine Observer, 53:132, 1983.) Comment. The above observations were made aboard ships 300-400 miles off Brazil. The only event correlated with the phenomena was a meteorological rocket said to have been launched on September 18. Rocket launches do pro-vide spectacular luminous phenomena offshore from Cape Kennedy, but the above phenomena do not seem consistent with small meteorological rockets. Sequence of visual phenomena seen at sea off Brazil. From Science Frontiers #31, JAN-FEB 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 80: Mar-Apr 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects First cold-fusion bomb?Possibly we are overreacting to the following event: "Cold fusion researchers are puzzled and worried by an explosion last week that killed one of their colleagues, a British electrochemist. A cold fusion 'cell' at SRI International in Menlo Park, California, blew up while Andrew Riley was bending over it, killing him instantly." Now small explosions in cold-fusion cells are not unknown. At the tops of some cells palladium-wire electrodes are exposed to oxygen and deuterium (heavy hydrogen) gases. If the palladium wires are not protected by films of water, the palladium can catalyze the explosive combination of the oxygen and hydrogen. This sometimes happens if a dry spot develops on a wire. Such detonations, though, cause little damage. The SRI explosion was much more powerful. The detonating cell (only 2 inches in diameter and 8 inches long), not only killed Riley but peppered three other researchers in the lab with debris. (Charles, Dan; "Fatal Explosion Closes Cold Fusion Laboratory," New Scientist, p. 12, January 11, 1992.) Comment. One cannot refrain from asking if the explosion involved only chemical energy. From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... molten metal freezes into a thin, metallic ribbon. If it is cooled too fast, a metallic glass results; cooled too slowly, it forms normal metal crystals. But when conditions are just right, icosahedral crystals cluster together in nodules a few microns in size. These icosahedral crystals are not normal in the sense that they have five-fold symmetry. In fact, to a crystallographer, these crystals are the equivalent to ESP in psychology. All the rules of crystallography insist that icosahedral crystals should not exist. One scientist reacted in this way: "All my training has been with the assumption that crystals are periodic. Now, almost everything has to be reexamined." Actually, the icosahedral crystals are "quasi-periodic"; that is, they are completely regular only over small distances. Nevertheless, there are hints that these materials that should not exist have remarkable structural and electronic properties. (Peterson, Ivars; "The Fivefold Way for Crystals," Science News, 127:188, 1985.) Two-dimensionsal quasiperiodic geometry (Penrose tiling) with five-fold symmetry formerly thought to be impossible in nature. The tricontahedron with 30 faces is the basis of three-dimensional quasiperiodic structures with five-fold symmetry. From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... emit radio energy when triggered by bursts of radio waves arriving from the sun. The outer atmospheres of these planets act like radio lasers, which store radio energy and then release it suddenly when stimulated by weaker solar signals. The earth's laser operates between frequencies of 50 and 600 kilohertz. Its emissions are known as the "auroral kilometric radiation" or AKR. While some of these terrestrial emissions are spontaneous, others are stimulated by Type-III solar radio bursts. The newly discovered Jovian laser operates at hectometric wavelengths and is also triggered by the solar radio bursts. (Calvert, W.; "Triggered Jovian Radio Emissions," Geophysical Research Letters, 12:179, 1985.) Comment. Earth and Jupiter thus act like radio transponders, releasing large bursts in response to small solar stimuli. The role of electricity in the history of the solar system is only beginning to be appreciated. Of course, the radio lasers mentioned above are not very powerful, but what might have occurred during the formative stages of the solar system? Could electromagnetic forces have been more important then than they are now? In this regard, note that electrical forces seem to be strongly involved in the dynamics of Saturn's rings. And Saturn's rings themselves may resemble a miniature solar system in the accretion phase. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Genetic code not universal!Most current textbooks pronounce that the genetic code is not only universal to life but that it must. Alterations in the code, the reasoning goes, would garble genetic messages. Such dogma, however, is based on another dogma, which states that all life on earth derives from a single ancestral line in which the genetic code is fixed and has always been fixed -- a "frozen" accident hit upon "by chance" on the primitive earth. Recently, though, small deviations from the code have turned up in ciliated protozoons and mycoplasmas, much to everyone's surprise. (Scott, Andrew; "Genetic Code Is Not So Universal," New Scientist, p. 2l, April 11, 1985.) Comment. No major deviations from the standard genetic code have been found; but then no one has really looked, because everyone knew the code was universal. It would be quite a shock if terrestrial life were found to have several genetic foundations and as many schemes of evolution. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... no older than 3-4 million years. The unique terrestrial life forms had to develop in less time than this. (Hickman, Carole S., and Lipps, Jere H.; "Geologic Youth of Galapagos Confirmed by Marine Stratigraphy and Paleontology," Science, 227:1578, 1985.) Comments. Several remarks seem appropriate here: (1 ) The varied fauna and flora of the Galapagos did not evolve independently; viz., the bills of the Darwin finches are tailored to specific food sources (plants). Many species changed rapidly and in concert. (2 ) A recent Science article (228: 1187, 1985) notes that inbred mice often evolve different morphological characteristics very quickly. This observation probably applies to the initial Galapagos populations, which must have been small and inbred. (3 ) Harking back to the item on the Guadeloupe skeleton, the Galapagos display similar strata of limestone, beach rock, etc. Until now, the limestones had been dated from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, but according to Hickman and Lipps they must be much younger than Miocene. The Guadeloupe dates may also be in error. Caveat emptor. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... (described above) that seems to have been firmly attached to the South American plate for 120 million years. No differential motion there! Now, from a different line of evidence, P.D . Ihinger is challenging the well-entrenched "Hawaiian-volcanic-chain" theory. For example, the Hawaiian volcanoes do not line up exactly. There are dozens of short, overlapping segments rather than a continuous trace across the Pacific basin. On the map, you will also see a sharp dog-leg in the trace. Further, the volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, only 40 kilometers apart, disgorge lavas that are distinctly different. Something is not right! Ihinger postulates a strong mantle current flowing ponderously under the Hawaiian chain, dissecting the rising plume of hot rock into small "plumelets". These discrete blobs of hot rock are dispersed by the current of semi-solid rock and disrupt the expected simple pattern. (Ihinger, Phillip D.; "Mantle Flow beneath the Pacific Plate: Evidence from Seamount Segments in the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain," American Journal of Science, 295:1035, 1995. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Volcanoes Reveal Earth's Hidden Currents," Science News, 148: 357, 1995) Comment. Although a bit abstruse, these geological anomalies detected under South America and Hawaii threaten one of the crowning achievements of modern geology and geophysics. From Science Frontiers #103, JAN-FEB 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... grows to an area of about 25,000 km2 ." The Iowa group thinks that the holes or spots are created by meteors hitting the upper atmosphere because the spots follow the same time distribution as meteors. For example, they are more frequent during the well-known meteor showers. The theory is that the dark spots are formed when ice associated with the meteors is turned into water vapor, which reacts with the atmospheric oxygen producing the dayglow, in effect removing temporarily part of the light source. So far, everything seems relatively nonanomalous. But when quantities are calculated, though, jaws begin to drop. The sizes of the spots imply that the average meteor involved weighs 10 kilograms, mostly ice and far larger than has been thought. In fact, they may be characterized as small icy comets; that is, compositionally like the dirty snowballs that comets are now thought to be, but much, much smaller. The implication is that from 1,000 to 10,000 times more material is being added to the earth's atmosphere than previously believed -- most of it being water. (Weisburd, S.; "Atmospheric Footprints of Icy Meteors," Science News, 128:391, 1985.) Comment. From this launchpad, one's thoughts can really take off. How much water can this bombardment of icy meteors add to the earth, Mars, and other solar system bodies? In the item under GEOLOGY about the Greenland ice cores, it was indicated that the extraterrestrial dust influx during the Ice Ages might have been as high ...
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... three answers: oThis is the way God wanted it to be. Further inquiry is unnecessary. oIf the universe were constructed any other way, we wouldn't be here to ask such silly, anthropomorphic questions! Some find this "anthropic principle" to be no answer at all. oOur universe was actually created and its properties fine-tuned by nonsupernatural entities of superior intelligence living in another universe. [These beings apparently get a kick out of manufacturing other universes, or perhaps it's a religious imperative for them!] Before you crumple up this issue of SF and hurl it at very high energy into a wastebasket, consider these two paragraphs from the Times article. "' We are beginning to see how universes can be created,' Professor Harrison says. 'A small amount of matter -- roughly 10 kg -- at very high energy is forged into a black hole. Under the correct conditions, the interior of the black hole inflates into a new universe that endures for billions of years and contains billions of galaxies.' "At most, he argues, human intelligence is only one million years old. 'If we can already see how in principle universes can be created, then surely our descendants in the far future will have the knowledge and technology to design and create them.'" (Hawkes, Nigel; "Aliens May Have Created Universe, Says US Scientist," London Times, August 21, 1995. Cr. B. Greenwood via L. Farish, UFO Newsclipping Service, #2 Caney Valley Drive, Plumerville, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Tigers in western australia?The title of course refers to the Tasmanian tiger or wolf or thylacine. We reported above on the possibility of a small relict population of Tasmanian tigers in Tasmania, where the supposedly last specimen expired in a Hobart zoo in 1936. There is now good evidence that the thylacine also roams Western Australian, where it has been believed extinct for thousands of years! At hand are photographs, casts of footprints, a carcass that may be very recent, and many eye-witness reports. Much of the recent evidence has been gathered by Kevin Cameron, a first-rate bushman with two superbly trained dogs. A.M . Douglas, the author of this article and formerly Senior Experimental Officer at the Wetern Australian Museum in Perth was skeptical about living thylacines at first but is now a firm believer. He states, "I think Kevin Cameron has made the single most important wildlife discovery of this century." (Douglas, Athol M.; "Tigers in Western Australia?" New Scientist, p. 44, April 24, 1986.) From Science Frontiers #46, JUL-AUG 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Big-bang brouhaha Unless you have been in a coma the past couple months, you have heard that the Big Bang has now been elevated from a theory to a fact. The reason for the media hullabaloo was the announcement that minute fluctuations had been detected in the cosmic microwave background. The media hype was notably chauvinistic. Some Big-Bang proponents declared that discovery was the greatest scientific advance of the century, completely ignoring the genetic code, continental drift, nuclear fission, and so on and so on. More sober scientists rejected such extravagant claims. They pointed out that independent confirmation of the fluctuations was yet to come and that, after all, the fluctuations were very small (only some 30 millionths of a K). And which of the many variations of Big Bang was going to be enthroned? Even Nature advised extreme caution, quoting H. Bondi in this regard: ". .. the data in cosmology are so likely to be wrong that I propose to ignore them." (Anonymous; "Big Bang Brouhaha," Nature, 356:731, 1992.) Comment. It is ironical that before astronomers found large-scale inhomogeneities in the cosmos (galactic clusters and superclusters, the Great Wall, etc.), the Big Bangers claimed that the very smoothness of the microwave background proved the reality of the Big Bang. The Big Bang, it seems, is one of those "politically correct" paradigms, which one criticizes ...
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... ! Purpose aside, did Mayan influence and trade really reach far north into Oklahoma? Many archeologists doubted this at first. They claimed that Tussinger knapped the Oklahoma flints himself and sold them during the Depression for a dollar or so apiece. But how would a simple, uneducated, Oklahoma farmer know about ancient Mayan flint making? Furthermore, Tussinger claims he found some 3,500 of these remarkable objects in a single cache while exploring a mound. That's a lot of flint knapping for one person! (Actually, many very large caches of flints, both practical and "eccentric," have been unearthed in North America.) More recently, the possibility of fraud has diminished with the discovery of similar ornate flints elsewhere in Oklahoma. In 1961, C. Murray found a small cache of 107 flints similar to Tussinger's in the same Oklahoma county. (Iler, Jim; "Oklahoma's Buried Maya Treasure," Ancient American, no. 13, p. 3, 1996) Comment. The message of the eccentric flints is that Mayan influence probably did reach far into North America and very likely influenced the Moundbuilders -- perhaps even in the design of their temple mounds. Reference. Read more about eccentric flints in our Handbook: Ancient Man. Description here . Typical Oklahoman "eccentric" flints. From Science Frontiers #106, JUL-AUG 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 82: Jul-Aug 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Can you guess where this quotation comes from?THE GRADUALIST'S DILEMMA "The basic article of faith of a gradualist approach is that major morphological innovations can be produced without some sort of saltation. But the dilemma of the New Synthesis is that no one has satisfactorily demonstrated a at the population genetic level by which innumerable very small phenotypic changes could accumulate rapidly to produce large changes: a process for the origin of the magnificently improbable from the ineffably trivial. This leads to skepticism about the microevolutionary approach. Perhaps, as Waddington put it: 'the real guts of evolution -- which is, how do you come to have horses and tigers, and things -- is outside the mathematical theory.'" Did you guess a creationist publication? Sorry! (Thomson, Keith Stewart; "Macroevolution: The Morphological Problem," American Zoologist, 32:106, 1992.) (And just the other day, we read that evolution was a proven fact!) From Science Frontiers #82, JUL-AUG 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil, oil: everywhere, every age Geologists have discovered a major deposit of oil in Precambrian rocks in Australia's Northern Territory. Precambrian oil does exist elsewhere -- around the Great Lakes, Russia, etc. -- but the Australian deposits differ in that they are economically attractive. The oilbearing strata are dated at between 1.4 and 1.7 billion years; and the oil itself is at least this old. Significantly, the oil contains extremely small amounts of steranes, which are thought to be derived from advanced organisms, but there were plenty of chemicals typical of primitive bacteria. The mere existence of commercially exploitable deposits of Precambrian oil implies that, far from being devoid of life, the ancient earth was host to immense accumulations of bacteria and other simple organisms. (Anonymous; "Ancient Oil in Australia: A New Bonanza?" New Scientist, p. 26, September 11, 1936.) Comment. As discussed above this Australian oil might have been produced abiogenically. The surface and near-surface Athabasca oil sands in western Canada constitute a well-known deposit of almost unbelievable size. Geologists have long speculated about where such an immense quantity of biological matter could have originated. (Few dare to suggest nonbiological origins!) Now, we learn that below the Cretaceous Athabasca oil sands lies a 70,000 square kilometer "carbonate triangle" estimated to contain about 2 x 1011 cubic meters ...
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... Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Were titius and bode right?For a couple of centuries, astronomers have been trying to explain in physical terms why the empirical and very simple formula of Titius and Bode works so well. It is only an unimposing geometric progression, which, if one inserts the earth's average distance from the sun, yields the distances of the other planets with enough accuracy to perturb astronomers. You see, all scientists abhor numerology. They must insist that the Titius-Bode Law has physical underpinnings. S. Weldenschilling and D. Davis now propose that the planets owe their present positions to a combination of two effects: The frictional drag of the gas in the solar nebula, which favors the presence of small planets in the inner solar system. Gravitational perturbations that create favored places for the coalesceing of planets. C. Patterson has expanded on this suggestion and finds that a model based on these effects works quite well for Jupiter and beyond, where planets are "bound together" in an interlocking system of orbital-period resonances. (See diagram.) Several important anomalies persist, however. That vacant niche between Uranus and Neptune is presently unexplained. In the inner solar system, the presence of Mercury is "embarrassing." (Anonymous; "Were Titius and Bode Right?" Sky and Telescope, 73:371, 1987. Reference. The "problem" of Mercury is treated in AHB2 in The Moon and the Planets. This catalog is described here . In C. Patterson ...
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... . Ref. 2. Perlman, David; "Origin of Animals -- 1.2 Billion Years Ago," San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1996. Cr. J. Covey. Ref. 3. Wray, Gregory A., et al; "Molecular Evidence for Deep Precambrian Divergences among Metazoan Phyla," Science, 274:568, 1996. Homology vs. DNA. Until the molecular biologists recently arrived on the scene, evolutionary family trees were based upon similarities in appearance; that is, homology. Animals that look alike must be closely related. But molecular biologists have discovered that some animals that seem identical to the eye differ significantly in their DNA complements. Thus, the Pacific skinks may undermine homology. Inhabiting many, far-separated Pacific islands, these small lizards all look pretty much alike externally. For many years, biologists assumed that they all belonged to the same species. Recently, scalpels in hand, they found that the skink innards differed enough to define two species: Emioa cyanura and Emioa impar . Next, the molecular biologists got into the act. They discovered that the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the Guam and Kosrae skinks differed by an amazing 6%, even though both skinks were E. cyanura . Even worse, the Vanuatu skink ( E. impar ) differed from all other E. impar skinks around the Pacific by an astounding 13%. Yet, to the eye, they all looked alike. So much for homology -- unless there is something basically wrong with molecular biology. Biologists now suspect that there ...
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... energetic than astronomers care to contemplate. In fact, if they exist in a galactic halo, we should also be able to detect the bursters in our neighboring galaxies -- but we do not! A more exciting suggestion is that gamma-ray bursters are really very close! This would be consistent with the failure to find cosmological redshifts in the burster spectra. Could they be really close, just a few hundred light away? Perhaps arranged in a spherical halo about our solar system in the vicinity of the postulated Oort Cloud of comets? If this were so, they would not have to be nearly as powerful as they would in the neutronstar model. If the gamma-ray bursters really do lurk just at the fringes of the solar system, they must, given their power and small size, be objects completely new to astronomy. (Schwarzschild; Bertram; "Compton Observatory Data Deepen the Gamma Ray Burster Mystery," Physics Today, 45:21, February 1992.) Comment. Historically speaking, the gamma-ray bursters were discovered accidentally by satellites launched to detect surreptitious tests of nuclear weapons. Wouldn't it be ironical if our satellites are really monitoring artificial phenomena, generated by battles we can only write science fiction stories about? Reference. Refer to AOF29 in our Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos for gamma-ray "bursters." Details here . From Science Frontiers #83, SEP-OCT 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Moodus Sounds Geologists from New Jersy are preparing to bore a 6-inch hole almost a mile into the Earth's crust on farmland off Sillimanville Road near Moodus (Connecticut). "Once and for all, they hope to determine the exact cause of the 'Moodus Noises' -- sounds that have been likened to the crack of a ball on candlepins in a distant bowling alley. "Indians thought the sounds were the grumblings of an evil spirit, and they named the area 'Machimoodus' or place of noises. "Geologists today say the sounds stem from earthquakes close to the surface. The quakes are so small that most can be measured only with special seismic instruments. But the reasons for the quakes are still the subject of hypothesis." (Barnes, Patricia G.; "Geologists Will Get to the Bottom of Moodus Noises," New Haven Register , April 30, 1987. Cr. J. Singer) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... only that, but he hypothesizes that the pygmies arrived in ancient times from southeast Asia, probably the Philippines, where today's diminutive Aetas live. To support his case, Pilapil recalls B. Fell's examination of the Tennessee skeletal material. Fell noted that: (1 ) The skull brain capacity was equivalent to only about 950 cubic centimeters, about the volume of a non-pygmy 7-yearold; (2 ) The teeth were completely developed and showed severe wear characteristic of mature individuals; and (3 ) The skulls were brachycephalic with projecting jaws. Fell had, in fact, described skulls very much like those of today's adult Philippine Aetas. Another line of evidence adduced by Pilapil involved the traditions of British Columbia tribes, which recognized a tribe of very small people called the Et-nane. More significant is the oral history of the Cherokees, which mentions the existence of "little people" in eastern North America. (Pilapil, Virgilio R.; "Was There a Prehistoric Migration of the Philippine Aetas to America?" Epigraphic Society, Occasional Papers , 20:150, 1991.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... sucking in stars and unwary spaceships? It's all true; an arti cle bearing the above title appeared in the January 1988 number of Sky and Telescope. Doubts do surface once in a while, despite all the TV documentaries, all the textbooks, and all the newspaper jottings, where black holes are described in the hushed tones used only with profound truths of nature. To set the stage, we quote a paragraph from said article: "There is, however, a serious problem with black holes, one that leaves some scientists skeptical about their existence. The overarching mystery lies hidden at a hole's center. Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts that we will find there an object more massive than a million Earths and yet smaller than an atom -- so small, in fact, that its density approches infinity. The idea of any physical quantity becoming infinite flies in the face of everything we know about how nature behaves. So there is good reason to be skeptical that such a nasty thing could happen anywhere at all." Among the observations that hint at the reality of black holes are the X-ray binaries. In a typical X-ray binary, prodigious, flickering fluxes of X-rays reveal the presence of an ultradense star and an orbiting companion. The rapid orbital motion of the companion star tells us that the central X-ray star has a mass of more than three suns. General Relativity assures us that such a star can only collapse further to form a black hole. Therefore, black holes must exist. J ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stele With Unknown Glyphs Found Near Vera Cruz A basalt stele found submerged in the Acula River, 40 miles southeast of Vera Cruz, Mexico, is "the most important stele found in America to date," says F.W . Capitaine, Director of the Jalapa Museum of Anthropology. The stele is 7.8 feet high, weighs 4 tons, and is adorned with 16 columns of glyphs. "The Vera Cruz stele has the same enumeration symbols used by the Mayas -- small circles and bars -- which enabled Mr. Winfield to identify two dates among the hieroglyphics: May 22, 143, and July 13, 156. "The remaining glyphs probably record events between those dates. Although there are 20 glyph types similar to the ones used by the Mayas, 100 more are new. The stone carries a total of 600 glyphs." Winfield hopes that the newly found stele will help explain what happened during the transition between Olmec and Maya cultures. He thinks it possible that the stele is the product of a previously unrecognized civilization. (Anonymous; "Inscribed Stone May Hold Secrets of Mexican Culture," Baltimore Sun, June 8, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #59, SEP-OCT 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... and Euphrates rivers. There, the authorities say that, about 10,000 years ago, humans suddenly learned how to sow and harvest such crops as wheat and barley. There, civilization really began. Or was it there? Wadi Kubbaniya, Egypt. At this site, G. Hillman, of the Institute of Archeology, London, has found grinding stones and tubers. This site is dated at 17,000-18,000 years old. New Guinea highlands. J. Golson, formerly of the Australian National University, has found ditches and crude fields in this area. The implication is that humans were tending plants here between 7,000 and 10,000 years ago. Buka Island, Solomons. While excavating Kilu cave, M. Spriggs and S. Wickler unearthed small flake tools with surfaces displaying starch grains and other plant residues. Evidently, these tools were used for processing taro. Further, the starch grains resembled those of cultivated rather than wild taro. Date: about 28,000 years ago. (Dayton, Leigh; "Pacific Islanders Were World's First Farmers," New Scientist, p. 14, December 12, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #86, MAR-APR 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf086/sf086a02.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 59: Sep-Oct 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Going For Gold The name of T. Gold appears often in Science Frontiers. Currently, he is promoting the theory that many of the earth's hydrocarbon deposits (gas, oil, graphite, etc.) are not of biological origin but are formed rather when primordial methane outgases from the planet's interior. A vanishingly small number of geologists buy Gold's theory. Nevertheless, the Swedish State Power Authority and some private investors have been impressed enough to fund a drilling project at the Siljan Ring, a meteorite crater 150 miles north of Stockholm. There are no significant sources of biogenic hydrocarbons nearby, but oil seeps are not uncommon around the Ring. Mainstream theory cannot account for these seeps, but Gold's theory can: primordial methane streaming up through the cracked granite shield is converted, probably with the help of bacteria, into oil and hydrocarbon sludge. "Ridicuous," say the mainstreamers. Recently, the drilling program, which has reached the 22,000foot level, brought up 60 kilograms of very smelly black sludge with the consistency of modeling clay. The gunk seems to have a biological origin. In addition to the black sludge, the drillers have been encountering increasing quantities of various hydrocarbon gases as the hole went deeper. All very supportive of Gold's hypothesis. Establishment geologists are having difficulties explaining these results. They blame contamination by drilling lubricants and/or the surface oil seeps. ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf059/sf059p10.htm
... This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Cosmic Snowballs And Magnetic Asteroids The genesis of a cosmic "dust bunny". The nebulous meteor of July 29, 1970, as observed over Dover, England. The great diversity of the debris swirling around the solar system is making life difficult for scientists trying to reconstruct solar-system history. At the high end of the density spectrum, we now have an asteroid that seems to be mostly metal (probably iron). This is the asteroid Gaspra, some 13 kilometers across, that the Galileo spacecraft encountered in August 1992 on its way to Jupiter. Scientists had not expected Galileo's magnetometer to flicker as it passed Gaspra at a distance of 1600 kilometers -- but it did. In fact, considering the inverse square law and Gaspra's small size, it was a magnetic wallop. Thus, Gaspra is the first known magnetic asteroid; and it is probably mostly metal. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic Ripple Hints Gaspra Is Metallic," Science, 259: 176, 1993.) At the low end of the density spectrum, we now find that Pluto's moon, Charon, and some of Saturn's moons have very low densities (1 .2 -1 .4 ), meaning they are probably mostly water ice. Such density figures come from direct observation of these objects' volumes combined with mass estimates from their orbital dynamics. (Crosswell, Ken; "Pluto's Moon Is a Giant Snowball," New Scientist, p. 16, November 21, 1992.) ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf086/sf086a04.htm
